Article
The four 'Cs' driving Jason's Deli's success
Jason's Deli racks up around $2.5M in AUVs. It's achieving that success by sticking with its core strengths, listening to customers, maintaining control and building strong company culture.
December 5, 2014 by Brenda Rick Smith — Editor, Networld Media Group
In the shadow of limited-service restaurant industry giants like McDonald's and Chick-fil-A, it might be easy to overlook Jason's Deli, a regional chain that has yet to break the 300-unit mark.
But when it comes to AUVs, the Beaumont, Texas-based chain ranks up there with the big boys, hovering around $2.5M.
What are the secrets behind the brand's success? Leaders don't have to offer details – the company is privately held—but Chief Branding Officer Jamie Cohen opened up and shared some insights in an interview with FastCasual.com.
The keys to the brands success seem to shake out into four areas: sticking with its core strengths, listening to customers, maintaining control and building strong company culture.
Focus on core strengths
Even as QSR and fast casual brands expand their daypart offerings – Starbucks now offers lunchtime sandwiches, you can snag a waffle taco at Taco Bell — Jason's Deli has remained focused on lunch, its biggest daypart.
"Many of our competitors are involved in bakery," said Cohen. While Jason's Deli does cater breakfast, and some breakfast options are available on the drive-thru menu, breakfast isn't offered in the delis. "It's not our core competency."
Rather than chase down breakfast dollars, Jason's Deli operators use that time of day to prepare for lunch traffic and catering.
While he didn't divulge numbers, Cohen said catering "has a very big impact on what we do."
Cohen credits the brand's success with catering to its long history.
"I've been with the company for 20 years, and we were doing catering long before I started," he said. "We have that brand penetration. We've developed the systems that allow us to do that volume and meet the customers' needs and meet the customers' last minute requests. We can do more than our competitors without impacting customer service."
Jason's Deli is looking to drive-thru to propel its AUVs even further, according to Cohen.
Approximately 10 to 15 percent of units system-wide now have drive-thru windows, and the ability to offer drive-thru is a key consideration for real estate under consideration for new units.
"We feel strongly that drive-thru is helping to move additional sales," said Cohen. "We continue to see year-over-year growth, and we do believe it is going to improve in the future."
Listening to customers
Building on customer relationships is also key to the brand's growth, said Cohen.
Jason's Deli listens to customer feedback through a variety of channels, including InMoment's "Voice of the Customer" tool, social media, an 800 number for customer feedback, surveys and more.
Jason's Deli also uses a third party to audit its operations, and all of its operators conduct their own audits, too.
Most importantly, Jason's Deli leaders make it a point to regularly spend time in the delis, meeting customers where they interact with the brand.
"The most important thing that happens, happens in the stores," said Cohen.
Jason's Deli also deploys more than 40 local sales people to build relationships in communities, offering special deals to schools, houses of worship and potential corporate customers. Each sales person represents just a few stores.
The on-the-ground sales force is "key to building community. That builds a lot of trust and great relationships," said Cohen.
Keeping it close
Not only is Jason's Deli privately held, it owns its own distribution channels, with hubs in Texas and North Carolina. That ownership gives the brand a great deal of control over the products it uses.
For instance, in 2005 when the company began looking at getting rid of transfats in all its offerings, it was able to negotiate directly with suppliers instead of relying on a distributor.
"We went back to our cracker company and said 'if you want to continue to do business with us, you have to get this out of the product,'" said Cohen. "If we had gone through a supply house, it wouldn't have had a sense of urgency."
Jason's Deli has successfully removed transfats, MSG and high-fructose corn syrup from its menu items, a fact that its customers appreciate, said Cohen.
"Customers taste the difference, and that's first and foremost the important thing," said Cohen. "We're in the people business and we just happen to serve food."
Because it is privately held, Jason's Deli can take a more customer-centric approach to decision making, said Cohen.
"We're making decisions that benefit the customer, not Wall Street," he said. "Look at beef prices lately. Like everyone else, we've had to take price increases. There have been times we haven't taken the increases, because we can't hit the customer with it. I don't think all companies are in the position to make that decision because they are answering to investors."
The payoff for Jason's Deli is in customer loyalty and trust, he said.
Cultivating culture
It seems the brand keeps things close when it comes to franchising, too. Jason's Deli is "very, very selective about our franchisees," said Cohen. "We want operators who are going to be in their stores, and be very hands-on. We look at them more as partners, and we look to see that they have the same core values."
Jason's Deli is diligent about communicating its core values through weekly communications with team members, and every quarter, groups of employees and vendors are brought into headquarters for three days of training on the company's core values.
"I really do believe that our success is tied back to our culture," said Cohen. "Our culture of making every customer happy and doing whatever it takes has been working for 40 years."
About Brenda Rick Smith
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